While the RSS advertising market is just starting out — so new that data on the value of the industry is not yet available — new services are already launching to get advertisers involved.
Rocketinfo, Rancho Mirage, CA, which has a news search engine, RocketNews.com, has started inserting ads in its RSS feeds. Its first clients include fantasy sports site Sandbox.com, Viapoint Corp. and the BusinessExchange Network. Ads are supplied by Kanoodle.com, a provider of ads specifically for RSS feeds.
As RSS use grows, more business customers see the monetization of these services through the use of contextual advertising embedded in the feeds, Rocketinfo said.
E-mail performance management firm Return Path, New York, said last week that it is partnering with RSS management service FeedBurner to offer its clients advertising in RSS feeds.
“We see RSS as a complement to e-mail and other online advertising in that it provides marketers with one more medium for reaching potential customers in a targeted fashion,” said Marty Donner, vice president and general manager at Return Path List and Data Solutions.
Though research firms and even RSS firms cannot say what the current market is worth, they agree that it's another potential revenue stream for advertisers.
“I would characterize the efforts by advertisers as, 'We're in the planning trials.' They're starting to put some dollars toward it, not the biggest ad campaigns you've ever seen,” said Brent Hill, vice president of business development at FeedBurner, Chicago.
Publishers, on the other hand, are getting very involved with RSS
advertising. Ninety percent of the subscribers to the 100,000 RSS feeds
that go through FeedBurner contain ads, Hill said.
Christine Blank covers online marketing and advertising, including e-mail marketing and paid search, for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
